Somewhere under Facebook, settings->Ads you should find at least a bit of a breadcrumb as to why this might have popped up. A random example or two might be you commented negatively on a post or link someone posted, Facebook didn’t care but added that advertiser to your list. You might also have read an article on something recently and that site shares data with Facebook, thus you are getting the ad that way.
Even just going through the ads settings on Facebook was pretty eye-opening the last time I cleaned mine out. There were tons of things in there I had ZERO interest in and had NO IDEA how they got there.
Some examples from mine:
Pitbull (the rapper)
Ballroom Dance
Groovy Programming Language
GOP (like … what the hell?)
Fairy
(Multiple strange advertisers I don’t know a thing about)
Go and remove as many of those as you can, turn off information sharing from partners and sadly, never throw a “Like” to anything you know will end up coming back as an ad, so generally anything a friend might “share” from another source.
Random FB weirdness for me is occasionally I’ll catch a post in my timeline I’m actually interested in, but before I can move my cursor to scroll down and see a bit more, it vanishes. But as for ads, they seem to focus on storefronts I’ve recently visited and some weird algorithm that figures if I like blueberries and pie, I must be shopping for socks (apparently they get worn out while picking blueberries and making pies).
Sure. I looked in there before when FB info kind of exploded a few weeks ago but here’s the thing and a general problem with the tech industry and how disconnected they are… WTH. I mean seriously, don’t post skin lighteners to a certain group of people in the USA. That’s it. It’s super messed up. Yes. I know there is a market for it, but seriously this is not…
do they want to sell me burning crosses next? Or maybe a hose to put one out?
I did, but I kept picking different reasons hoping I could tell them why it’s not okay. There was no option, and Facebook doesn’t’ respond to back.
It’s not Wal-Mart or Facebook exactly, they should just have additional checks and it has nothing to do with math. Like not sending skin lighteners as an advert or baby supplies to someone who miscarried. It makes me wonder are any humans even having conversations over there about these things?
And no the answer is not for all people with not pale skin and women who lost babies to delete their Facebook account. I think we can do better than that.
Call me paranoid. A few nights ago the wife and I were discussing bras. How many women are wearing the wrong size bra. How many women needed custom bras. Then a couple nights ago she started getting ads for custom bras on Facebook. She has never gotten ads for bras before. Any kinds.
We were talking on the front porch. She always has Facebook open on her phone when we are there. Were they listening? Am I paranoid?
I think you should repeat the experiment! Go back to the porch and talk about adult diapers or something. Unless that’s something you already talk about and see adverts for, ya old coot!
There have been a number of experiments with this on YouTube that look legit as though it DOES listen. Facebook denies this and some technical facebook supporters say it doesn’t prove via technical testing, but well, here we are, and the shit is pretty creepy.
When you test, be sure and test with the app running on the phone, either the active window or background.
I should add, my girlfriend and I have tried this experiment discussing items and toys related to children, which neither of us have and which she is unable to have.
Two days ago I deleted one of the advertising interests from my Facebook:
Kids
The problem is that if I ever liked say, pictures of my Niece and Nephews, recently, those could have been tagged content for all I know. I certainly haven’t seen ads for kids toys and whatnot.
Verge covered this recently and they make the claim that Facebook doesn’t listen to your mic, but it doesn’t need to since it has so many other ways of gathering information from you including your location, geofencing, your in-store retail purchases, your browsing history, all of the social media plugins around the web that people interact with (thumbs up, heart, favorites, etc.), and they buy your credit history.
The video in the article is worth a watch.
Also any site that hasFacebook Pixel embedded in it will be capturing and sharing your data.
It’s not your actual conversations that lead to ad targeting; it’s everything else that you do offline and online. The company knows your browsing habits because of trackers like its own Facebook Pixel and those “Like” buttons all over the internet that report back your web activity. It also knows your self-identified demographics; your location because of its app permissions; your friends and family; your real-world purchases; and what you look like because of your uploaded photos. The company knows a lot about you! Just not what you say, exactly. Plus, it would violate wiretapping laws, and Facebook really doesn’t need to go that far to confirm what it already knows about us.
99% probability : she probably visited a site (either a retailer or some article on a news site) that was focused on lingerie and then that site shared that info with FB so that FB knows what to target.
Several months ago, a colleague of mine gave a couple presentations in French to some store manager from Quebec. Not in Quebec, here in the GTA. He isn’t a French speaker, and doesn’t conduct any other of his business personally or professionally in French. We just had him deliver the French portion of the presentation because he was the only one in the office who spoke the language.
The next day, Google started serving up ads to him in French.
It corrected the following day, switching back to English, but we suspect it was because his phone heard him speaking in French for the major portion of the day, and some algorithm determined he would like to see French advertising.
Frankly, I think that’s pretty cool. I’m not paranoid and I have nothing to hide, so I don’t worry about these things. I believe we succeeded our rights to privacy long long ago, and anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional.
Most actual studies (there have been a few) show that the impression that ads change due to things we talk about is mainly just driven by confirmation bias and coincidence.
